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7
POLICY • Vol. 31 No. 2 • Winter 2015
SYMPOSIUM ON FEMINISM
GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES
Why we still need feminism
Many women lack the basic freedom of
movement; they are prisoners in their homes
unless given permission to leave by men and are
viewed as male property. Afghanistan’s prisons
are overflowing with women who have been
imprisoned because they dared to attempt to flee
abusive husbands. They claim that they are better
off in prison because once released, they could be
killed. In criminal cases in Algeria, the testimony
of a female witness is only worth half of a male
witness. In Armenia the legal system should treat
men and women equally, but women reporting
domestic violence are asked what they did to deserve
their beating, or are sent home because wife-beating
is a family matter.
I am one of a group of scholars participating
in a global data project called WomanSTATS
(www.womanstats.org), which is collecting and
analysing information concerning the situation of
women, including laws, data, and practices. All
of our information is triangulated from multiple
sources, and these sources can vary greatly, thus
final decisions require careful analysis of the data
points. Here are some of our findings.
[See Figure 1 to 6 on page 9]
Let me give you one example
that really highlighted the need to
include women in development
projects. I can recall a study of a
development project in Mexico
regarding the introduction of
E
quality for women has been a long hard
struggle throughout the world. Our
achievements have often been piecemeal,
as exemplified by the history of the right
to vote. New Zealand was the first in 1893, and
Australia soon followed, with South Australia in
1894 and others shortly thereafter, but for other
states the history of women’s voting is much
more recent: Switzerland in 1971, 1994 for black
women and men in South Africa, and 2005 for
Kuwaiti women. This week, women in Saudi
Arabia are registering to vote for the first time in
the upcoming December election. The reform of
laws and practices has enabled women to claim
their space alongside men in public life, a sphere
traditionally held by men.
But the feminist project is unequal, even in
developed, democratic states, particularly for
women in lower socio-economic classes and among
particular ethnic groups. For as many women who
joined the ‘why I don’t need feminism’ campaign in
the US and UK, there are as many who participated
in the ‘why I need feminism’ campaign. These
recent campaigns demonstrate the fact that
feminisms are multiple and varied.
While I would argue that we, in the West, do
not live in patriarchal states, this does not mean
that women have full equality with men. Gender
stereotypes and the pressure to conform are still
present in the education system, the market, and
in homes. If the feminist project is still necessary,
even in the West, it is particularly so in the
developing world. Women’s groups worldwide
are struggling to achieve even the most basic
rights for women, struggling to apply pressure
to their governments to change laws, struggling
to then change practices within their homes and
communities.
Andrea den Boer is senior lecturer in international
relations at the University of Kent. These remarks were
delivered at the Big Ideas Forum hosted by the CIS in
Sydney, 24 August 2015.